| Course | PS 303 Social Psychology |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Research ethics analysis |
| Length | About 1,030 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Psychology |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PS 303 Unit 7
Forty Men, Thirty Switches and a Cover Story: A Research Ethics Analysis of Milgram's 1963 Obedience Study, What Participants Faced and What They Were Told, and What a Review Board Would Ask Today
Student Name
Psychology, Herzing University
PS 303: Social Psychology
Instructor Name
June 23, 2026
Forty Men, Thirty Switches and a Cover Story: A Research Ethics Analysis of Milgram's 1963 Obedience Study, What Participants Faced and What They Were Told, and What a Review Board Would Ask Today
The Study
This analysis examines Milgram's first published obedience study (Milgram, 1963). Forty men aged twenty to fifty, recruited from the New Haven area by newspaper advertisement and direct mail, were paid to take part in what they were told was a study of memory and learning at Yale University. Each participant was assigned, by a rigged drawing, the role of teacher; the learner was a confederate. The participant was instructed to give the learner an electric shock for each wrong answer on a word-pair task, using a generator with thirty switches labeled from 15 to 450 volts, and to move one switch higher with each error. No shocks were actually delivered, but the participant believed they were. When participants hesitated, the experimenter used a fixed sequence of verbal prods, ending with "You have no other choice, you must go on." Twenty-six of the forty, sixty-five percent, continued to the final switch.
What Participants Were Exposed To and What They Were Told
What they were told
Participants were told the study concerned the effect of punishment on learning. That was false. They were told the shocks, though painful, caused no permanent tissue damage. They were not told that the learner was an actor, that the shocks were not real, or that the study's actual subject was their own obedience.
What they experienced
Milgram (1963) reported that many participants showed extreme tension: sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips and nervous laughter, and he described uncontrollable seizures in three participants. They experienced this while believing they might be harming another person.
What happened afterward
Milgram reported that participants were given an explanation after the session and a friendly reconciliation with the learner. The detail and timing of that debriefing, and whether every participant learned the full truth promptly, have been questioned since, but the original article presented it as part of the procedure.
The Contemporary Objection
Criticism came quickly. Baumrind (1964), writing in response to the article, argued that the procedure exposed participants to intense distress without adequate justification, that the deception could damage their trust in authority and in research, and that the reported reconciliation did not undo the experience of believing they had hurt someone. She also questioned whether the laboratory, where participants trust the experimenter, could tell us much about obedience in the world. Milgram replied to these criticisms, but the exchange set out the central questions that later rules addressed.
How Review and Consent Requirements Changed
In the years after the obedience studies, United States research ethics moved from investigators' judgment toward formal oversight. A national commission's 1979 document, the Belmont Report, named three guiding principles for studies involving people: respect for persons, requiring informed and voluntary participation; beneficence, requiring that risks be minimized and justified by benefits; and justice, concerning fair selection of participants (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1979). Federal regulations built on those principles require institutional review boards to approve research before it begins.
For psychologists, the American Psychological Association's ethics code adds specific standards. Standard 8.07 permits deception only when it is justified by significant value and no effective nondeceptive alternative exists, and it prohibits deceiving prospective participants about research reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress. Standard 8.08 requires prompt debriefing (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017).
What a Review Board Would Ask of the Design Today
A board reviewing Milgram's design would begin with the expected distress. The 1963 article itself reported extreme tension and seizures, which places the procedure squarely within the kind of severe distress Standard 8.07 says deception may not be used to produce. The board would ask whether participants' right to withdraw was respected, given prods such as "you have no other choice." It would ask how vulnerable participants would be screened out, who would be present to stop a session, and how quickly the full truth would be disclosed.
Burger (2009) showed what an approvable partial replication looks like. His design stopped every session at 150 volts, the point at which, in Milgram's data, most participants who continued that far went on to the end. He screened out people likely to react badly, told participants three times that they could withdraw and keep their payment, had a clinical psychologist monitor sessions and debriefed participants immediately. Seventy percent of his participants were willing to continue past 150 volts. The comparison shows that some of the original question can be studied ethically, at the cost of observing behavior only up to a point well below the original maximum.
What the Analysis Is Not
This analysis is not a template for designing a study. Any student who plans research with people, even a short survey for a class project, needs the approval of their institution's review board before collecting data, and the board, not a course paper, decides what a design requires. The questions listed above show the kind of reasoning boards use, but each board applies the regulations and its own policies to the particular study in front of it. The analysis also does not settle the scientific value of the obedience studies, which is debated separately: some researchers argue that the studies revealed something important about authority, while others question how participants understood the situation and whether the laboratory resembled settings where obedience matters. An ethics analysis can recognize that a study raised important questions and still conclude that its procedures would not be acceptable today. Holding both conclusions at once is part of reading the classic studies maturely.
Is It Fair to Judge 1963 by Today's Rules?
Judging Milgram as if he had violated rules that did not yet exist would be unfair. Asking what today's rules would require of his design is different, and it is useful: it shows why those rules exist. The obedience studies are among the cases that made formal review seem necessary, and analyzing them this way explains the purpose of the protections students now work under, rather than simply condemning the past.
References
American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). https://www.apa.org/ethics/code
Baumrind, D. (1964). Some thoughts on ethics of research: After reading Milgram's "Behavioral study of obedience." American Psychologist, 19(6), 421-423. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040128
Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0010932
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371-378. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040525
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
What the PS 303 Unit 7 instructions ask for
The seventh PS 303 unit asks students to analyze the ethics of one named study. Expect to report what participants were exposed to and what they were told, trace how review and consent requirements changed afterward, and state what an institutional review board would ask of the design today. A famous study is the usual choice because its record is well documented, though any study with enough published detail works. Judging older research by today's rules is unfair as a verdict on the researchers, but asking what today's rules would require is a useful analysis. The paper is not a plan for a study of your own; any real research needs your institution's review board.
How this PS 303 Unit 7 example is built
The study is described first: participants, recruitment, cover story, generator, prods and results. Separate run-in sections report what participants were told, what they experienced and what happened afterward. Baumrind's contemporary objection follows. A section traces later changes through the Belmont Report's three principles and the APA standards on deception and debriefing. The review board section applies those standards to the original design and uses Burger's partial replication to show the required changes. A section explains what the analysis is not, and the close addresses fairness in judging older research. Each review question is tied to a specific feature of the original design.
Reading the PS 303 Unit 7 rubric
Herzing's rubric for the research ethics analysis usually weighs an accurate account of the study, separation of exposure from disclosure, a clear history of later requirements, a point-by-point application of current standards and a fair stance on historical judgment, plus APA. The account earns credit when drawn from the original article. Exposure and disclosure score when reported separately. History earns points when specific documents and standards are named. The application section matters most, and full marks go to papers posing the questions a review board would actually ask. Fairness is credited when the paper distinguishes analysis from condemnation. Using an approved replication to show what changes would be required is often credited.
PS 303 Unit 7 help before you submit
Ethics papers lose points when they retell the study and declare it unethical without naming any standard. Another frequent weakness is merging what participants were told with what they experienced. Students often cite the Belmont Report or the APA code vaguely, without specific principles or standards. Some judge researchers by rules that did not exist. Others treat the analysis as permission to design a similar study. Overlooking an approved partial replication, which shows what changes would be required, leaves the review board section abstract. Quoting standards without applying them to specific features of the design is another weakness. Describing the debriefing as adequate or inadequate without saying what the original article reported is a further weakness.
Get a PS 303 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Attach your Unit 7 instructions and the PS 303 rubric, plus the study your section assigns if it names one. The example identifies the study, reports what participants experienced, ties each principle to a feature, dates the regulatory changes and states what review would require now. Free on the first, 24 to 48 hours.
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PS 303 Unit 7 questions, answered
Does the paper have to cover a famous study?
Your instructions usually name one or give a short list. Where they do not, a study with a published record and a documented aftermath gives you more to work with than an obscure one, because the analysis depends on knowing what participants were told and what happened next. Choose something whose original reports you can actually read.
Is it fair to judge older research by today's rules?
The analysis reports both and keeps them apart. Say what was expected of researchers at the time, say what is required now, and date the changes in between, because that sequence is the substance of the unit. A paper that collapses the two produces a moral verdict, while one that separates them explains how a field changed its practice.
Can I use this paper to plan a study of my own?
No, and the paper should not read that way. An ethics analysis examines what was done and what review now requires; it is not a protocol, and a classroom exercise is not the place to design research on people. If your program later involves research, the review process at your institution is where that conversation starts.
Where can I find a free PS 303 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page publishes the full PS 303 Unit 7 research ethics analysis of Milgram's study free, with the participant experience, later standards, the review board questions and margin notes. Assigned another study? Tell us which study, and an ethics analysis of it comes back free within a couple of days.
Is it fair to judge older research by today's rules in PS 303 Unit 7?
As a verdict on the researchers, no. As an analysis, yes: the sample asks what today's standards would require of the design, which explains why those standards exist.